Infinite Game Publishing (IGP) and Piranha Games announced today that after a decade of fan anticipation for a new MechWarrior game, MechWarrior Online has entered Open Beta. Mech combat has finally returned to millions of both veteran and new MechWarrior players at www.mwomercs.com. The highly anticipated and hotly previewed MechWarrior Online puts players in command of the most powerful war machine to ever walk the battlefield, the mighty BattleMech™. Already widely embraced by gamers in Closed Beta, its successful Founder’s Program achieved more than $5 million in sales since July.

“After a brief delay, we are very excited to open up the game and look forward to continuing to expand the Inner Sphere to both new players and our loyal fans. They have offered critical and immediate feedback, helping make MechWarrior Online the game it is today,” said Russ Bullock, president of Piranha Games.

Bullock continued, “We’re excited to enter this phase of development with our publishing partner, Infinite Games Publishing. Working together we have laid the groundwork for a full pipeline of content between now and our official launch early next year, and beyond.”

Set in the year 3049 during the early stages of a massive interstellar war, MechWarrior Online puts you in command of a wide variety of devastatingly powerful Mechs. Customize each of your Mechs to suit your preferred battlefield role; upgrade systems, replace weapons and tweak armor with near endless options.

I can't believe I am saying this, but months of BF3 playing on ping below 20 have made me unable to cope with this kind of lag (that is the ping level where the netcode of BF3 beings to truly shine). You are not shooting at mechs here, you are trying to find where the server thinks the mech is, which is not where it is locally.. awesome. Worse, because weapons work the same way, if you have high ping you can end up shooting in a direction you are not even aiming, now that is unique..

In BF3 when you see locally and shoot at something you see, it is valid no matter whether the server saw it, what is locally computed counts. This is how sometimes (in highish ping situations) dual kills can happen and it makes cheat security a pain in the ass. But this netcode would be absolutely mandatory for a slower yet more accuracy requiring game like this. Where it is absolutely vital that you can aim properly and accurately no matter what ping the opponent has.

This game needs dedicated servers and a better netcode. Then maybe, it could be fun as a diversion